What one child policy? Guangdong ‘octomom’ faces 10m fine

More crazy baby news! A couple in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, may have to pay over ten millian yuan in fines after they had eight babies (!) via in-vitro fertilisation.A photo of the massive brood, circulated as an advertisement by the studio which took it, caused consternation online as netizens held it up as an example of how wealthy Chinese couples bypass the one child policy.The couple spent almost one million yuan implanting fertilised embryos in both the mother herself and two surrogates hired “to guarantee success”. Like some kind of sick joke (in-vitro fertilisation is by no means a sure thing) all the embryos came to term and by the end of 2010 the couple had eight children.The use of surrogates is illegal in mainland China, though it is believed that all the births took place in Hong Kong. Under Zhaoqing regulations, any couple having an unauthorised second child must pay three to six times the previous year’s average income. The couple could therefore face fines of at least 5 million and up to 10.1 million yuan, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.Netizens have nicknamed the woman ‘bǎobǎo tài mǔqīn’ (宝宝太母亲) after the American ‘octomom’ Nadya Suleman, though Suleman carried all the babies to term in her own body. Hopefully this Chinese ‘octomom’ is wealthy enough to avoid the depressing, cringe inducing soft-core porn that Suleman has been reduced to.Responding to quite reasonable assumptions that the story is an elaborate hoax, an official at the Guangdong Health Department confirmed that the case was real, and under investigation.(h/t: Sharon Kwok)